Nature is everything that was not made or changed by man, it is a gift that should be shared equally and freely by everyone. However, if nature is all the landscape that was not influenced by humans then we do not have any nature at all. It should be the place where humans are usually far away, the place that lives by its own, wilderness. If we did not have this gift or if we do not protect it, we will not be able to survive. The fresh air the nature provides us and the energy our souls capture from it plays one of the biggest roles in our lives. In today’s society nature is generally seen as an endless resource mankindcan use and control whenever they want. The argument comes about at this point between the people that want to conserve nature and the people that want to preserve it. Most of the people state that they like nature and it is important that nature passes through generations. However not everyone does and agrees on conservative actions towards nature; even recycling, which is known as the easiest way to contribute to keeping nature as it is. The attitudes of people I interviewed about nature had small differences but mainly I realized that even though they believe that nature should be conserved, they dont do everything they can. The most popular conservative action is recycling. When asked to a 6 year-old, he states that they recycle to save and protect the nature. However when asked to a teenager or a grown-up, although they usually all know the importance of nature, the answer turns in to that its more economic. People believe that they are not important and one person being conservative is not gonna make a difference, therefore they wait for other people to do it for them. Today’s society has both the idea that nature should be used as an energy resource and it should stay “natural” and not be touched at all. Both opinions exist and acceptable. People love and want to conserve the nature that they enjoy. The things that give them pleasure in nature might be different types of trees imported from nature or a hammock where they can relax. However these are not natural or a part of wilderness. The wilderness they overlook is where they are not brave enough to survive and where the natural products they buy come from. On top of that it’s also known that they need the resources nature can provide them like electricity and water. In the text written by John McPhee the protagonist Dominy who believes in the idea that nature should be accessible and be used for different resources, he wants to build more dams and by doing this, believes that he will help the survival of many people. On contrary Brower points out the importance of preserving nature and the value of “untouched” nature for people. Brower also knows that dams are useful for some people and for some areas but he believes that the amount of dams that Dominy wants will definitely destroy what they were given by God and cause many different problems like pollution. We already know that multitudinous natural areas were destroyed with the creation of the cities and now a city means the absence of nature for everyone living there. However people want to have green areas, different types of trees and some wilderness they can access. Even the small green areas where it was planted some trees may give an amount of people the idea of being close to a natural area but the question is are those areas actually natural. The information I gathered from my interviews suggest that people can find the non-natural nature areas in the cities satisfactory but they would choose the real nature over them easily. The reason they find natural areas planted by man enough is because they know that real nature and wilderness can't survive in the city and its hard for people to leave their lives in the busy city life to visit real natural areas. However if we define nature as the place where no man has ever touched, then we don’t have any nature at all. Man has its impact on everything including nature and wilderness. In the text “The Idea of a Garden” we realize that after natural happenings destroy the nature the citizens used to enjoy, majority of the people state that they have to replant that area so next generations can have the semblance of their great old forest. Some other citizens believe that they should leave it alone and let nature do whatever it wants to because these kinds of occurrences are responsible for shaping and changing the forest. However the response to their idea is that man has always had a relationship with nature and that is why we can now enjoy it in many different places; if we leave it to nature to do that it might last for thousands years; people won't be able to enjoy or even see the natural areas. People view nature as only a place where they can enjoy the great view, fresh air and they dont care if that place is truly nature or planted. This also means that as long as the society has a place where they can enjoy nature and reach the resources, they dont care sorely about building dams. Therefore people are usually scared of the real wilderness where its harder for them to survive. However some people want to try this and believe that everyone who tries enough to find their vital needs in nature can survive and manage to live in it alone. Just like McCandless and Dick Proenneke tried to do in the Alaska wilderness and became famous trough their decisions in life and hard work.
Alone in the Wilderness
McCandless and Dick both decided to go into the wilderness alone and try to survive because they couldn't find the real meaning of life in the society. While they were trying to survive under the tough conditions, they were also trying to find theirselves in the wild. Nature is an escape for us from the busy and crowded environment we are continuously in where we always feel like we have to do something or go somewhere. It had always been the isolation from the world people are so used to live in that they dont even realize it is in some ways slowly poisoning them. Therefore the little pieces of grass or few trees along your way back home should be considered as a part of "nature". Even though man has an impact on everything that exists in this world, nature should be a place where man does not continuously live in and in many ways is not able to change a lot, so people can feel the difference between the city life they created and the nature they couldn't affect that much. However when wilderness is different from the nature we can experience whenever we want. Wilderness is the place man has even less affect or impact on and it is the place that can challenge you the most while it can give you the greatest feelings many people people never experienced. Living in the wilderness is basically living in a different world than big buildings, the sense of hurry and never being completely relaxed at all, which is what people are all used to live in right now. The thing that influences some people to go explore wilderness, even live in it, is when they realize that they had been doing something they don't even like for years and spent their life pretending to like something because the society made them feel that way. When they realize this and if they are ready to take the risks, which is the part where most of the people give up, they are able to see the other beauties this world has offered us since the beginning. It is unbelievable how much the man has an impact on everything, even in this video we can see how much he has to cut the trees in order to survive. In some ways mankind definitely depend on nature. While it is our escape from the reality, it is also in our reality; even in our exam papers, the clothes we were or the places we call home. The view todays society has on nature had been shaped throughout the years since the genesis through the important people in American Literature.
How did we get here?
The first source that shapes our view on nature as asociety the Genesis. The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis contain important nature symbols that conveys to the spiritual truth about the nature in mankind's mind. The symbolic description of the Garden mentioned in the Genesis is that it is the heart if man; the symbolic soil of the earth where God plants his seeds to grow spiritual food and the seed in the Genesis is the symbolic representation of children, words and several other types of things. Garden is seen as something man or God has to rule on and change even from the beginning and it is also mentioned that mankind depends on nature and the seeds that would not mean anything without nature. After reading the Genesis you instantly get the idea that Nature is something produced to work for man. However sometimes the evilness or the powers of nature can defeat man or beguile them to do stupid things, just like the trees that can produce good or evil fruit and the snake that lures the woman to eat the forbidden fruit. Nature and man were both created by God and since the beginning they both had an impact on each other but man always had the strength to control nature as he wants, most of the times forgetting that he would not mean anything without it. All the other creation stories have nature as a factor in them. One other example is the Pima/Iroquoian creation stories, which were created among the Indian tribes of North America.
Genesis
Mankinds control over nature has also been seen through Native Americans, they relied on storytelling to tell important life lessons and establish beliefs. They provide reference to their beliefs about right and wrong. They establish a big part of their culture by providing connections between man and nature. “The Iroquois Creation Story,” compares and shows the struggle between good and evil. It first shows the existence of both sides and then their differences. Both “The Iroquois Creation Story” and Pima’s “The Story of the Creation” have a bigger theme which is mankind’s connection with nature. In the creation stories it is usually established that this relationship is a cycle, by pointing out that man wouldn’t be able to do anything if there was no nature and nature would be pointless without man. Human’s role in nature and the harmony they live together in was really important for the Native Americans as we can see from the creation stories. It is also implied in the story that they had a belief of using nature efficiently for resources; nature is seemed as a source that has to be respected. However it was still obvious that man had to use nature to survive. Even though they have many other cultural aspects in these creation stories, most commonly they are all pointing at the direction of mankind’s role in conserving nature. These are the stories which led us and transitioned us towards the ideas in American Literature about nature and our attitude we have towards nature right now.
Nature in American Literature
The first view in American Literature was Cotton Mather who believed that witches were not possessed by spirits, but that they were agents of the devil and he saw Salem as a battleground between good and evil. He made connections to nature throughout his writing “From the Wonder of the Invisible World”. The phrase “invisible world” can be comprehended as something we cannot see and understand clearly, which is referring to nature and wilderness in some ways. The New World was settled on the “devil’s territories, something out of civilization, unknown, wilderness; it was what God had planted many years ago. While the New World was settling, the “poor plantation” began; not only agriculture but also the plantation of new people, new lives and more place for them to live in. He believes that all these people that filled the land where also ruining it. Cotton Mather settled a clear history about the people who saw their selves transforming the witches into civilization. In this case, this is also referring to transforming the wilderness into civilization. Turning something they did not know enough, in to the idea of a harmonious community. In that way, Cotton Mather’s ideas also had a religious theme in them and could be related to Genesis and the creation stories. Witchcraft was something when they couldnt find answers in the New World.After him, Crevecoeur starts his Letters from an American Farmer by describing what an American for him is.
Crevecoeur
Crevecoeur argues if Europeans coming to America were considered as Americans and how they all constructed the new American figure. Therefore he said that American was a new man; who acted upon new principles, entertained new ideas and formed new opinions and who also had religious demands and freedoms. He also made the argument that “Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow.”(Crevecoeur 313). This suggests that we would not be anything without the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess and the nature of our employment. This makes us just like plants, meaning nothing without the outside and their impact on us. This is why Crevecoeur believes that nature and men should live in commodity that they need each other in order to survive.Ideas about wilderness and that it has to be changed in order for mankind to live in it happily continued evolving with Jefferson and his notes on Virginia.
Jefferson
Jefferson’s notes are combined by different quests and different topics. He combines objective and subjective manners together in all of them; meaning that he gives facts combined with emotional behaviors, that is one of the reasons why it can be comprehended by many different people. He also gives information from his perspective in a way that everyone can make connections to and understand easily. On top of that, other than his queries about the nature in Virginia, he made connections to nature in many of his different queries, which forms a unity and structure between the parts. For example, on his query about countries and towns he wrote about how laws said there should be towns but nature said there shall not. He stated that this can be proved through the indications of nature. It was wilderness in Virginia before man came and tried to change it the way he should in order to continue on living comfortably. Even though wilderness, the unknown, was growing endlessly on the grounds of this New World, at first it used as many powers to prevent mankind from destroying it. However, man and nature were created so that they could live together; they both had to have an impact on each other. That is why the only way they could continue on existing was if they could live together with commodity. After Jefferson's noted, Emerson bring up an artistic perspective to nature.
Nature, in common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of Emerson's will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken altogether are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so Grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result. Emerson added his point of views on nature to the American Literature through art. He compared the situation that for many people nature is the parts of the world that is unchanged by man, but man has an impact on everything he’s able to reach, to art. Art is applied to something real and makes little differences on it and when you look form the outside again you can’t tell the difference; if it’s a painting of a tree, you say that it’s a tree the first time you see it. Man definitely has an impact on nature but this impact stands so little next to nature itself. Emerson, in his writings on nature, uses a religious theme. He states that nature never wears a mean appearance that nature is always accessible to man and it always leaves an impression if their mind is open to influence at that time. Emerson makes this argument using his example about stars and how no men would believe or adore them if they only came out one night in thousand years. He says that no one would have the chance to remember God and the beauties he gave us. However they come out every night, lighten ups the universe, but they are not accessible like nature. Just like stated in Genesis, nature and wilderness were something God made accessible to man, so that they could live together and so that they could both have an impact on each other. That is why, Emerson states, people return to reason and faith while in the woods. In nature, man turns himself back to God and remembers that he is a part or a particle of nature and God. However not every man can see and feel this way, not every man can open their influences in nature. Emerson puts out two different kinds of people that can easily do this; child and poet. This is because they see everything bigger and in a wonder, which leads them to get easily influenced. For Emerson there is a commodity between man and nature. We owe many of the things we own; many of our advantages to nature, to what nature provided us with and offered us. “Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result.” (Emerson 495). All of its parts work incessantly to profit and offer man. This also again relates to religious theme and Genesis in a way that nature was made to serve man. Ben Franklin improved Emerson's ideas about nature using the Native Americans.
The idea that the poet and the child are the only people that can really feel and connect with nature is developed by Ben Franklin and his statement that Native American had been that way too before the Europeans came and forcefully influenced their lifestyles on them.
Ben Franklin
He talks about how Native Americans are seen as savages and if that is right or wrong. He states that the only reason we call them savages is because their manors are different from ours. Which leads him to make the argument if he actually believes they’re savages or if he believes that they are well in their differences. The way they behave, the way they live were different from what the Europeans were used to do when they first arrived to America. However this was not only when they first arrived, this idea continued on years and even now we can still meet some people thinking the same way. When European’s first came to America they left their well structured developed governments and towns. Their life styles were far more different from the Native Americans that were already living there. Native Americans were more connected and in a harmony with wilderness than what The Europeans were used to and in my opinion that is why Native Americans were seen as savages. One of the arguments Ben Franklin makes is that probably the Native Americans saw the new typical Americans as “savages” and maybe they actually were. The new typical Americans were generally from European countries and most of them brought their old life styles there and many things they’ve known for years and constructed a new society on the New Land. Their interaction with nature and wilderness was far lower than Native Americans. So when they first arrived and saw all these people living inside nature and when they first saw wilderness they were scared, which made them look for answers in the bible and witchcraft. These mystical things and what they saw on Genesis made them believe that wilderness and nature were there to serve them but they also knew that consuming it all would be bad. So they became the tenders of nature and believed that everything they tend would glorify God. They used nature for their own goods; so they could make food, make houses and many other things. That is why Ben Franklin argues that Native Americans probably saw the new Americans as savages.
On top of the famous names in American Literature that wrote about nature; Emily Dickinson, also a famous name in our language, explained her feelings and views on nature through her poems. (Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson)
- A Day
I'll tell you how the sun rose, A ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran. The hills untied their bonnets, The bobolinks begun. Then I said softly to myself, "That must have been the sun!"
- Emily Dickison includes to the nature in American Literature through her poems. In this poem, she talks about the beauty of sunrise and sunset and little pleasures she gets from them. The little words like “ribbon” or “sunset” has different meanings in her nature poem. For example “sunrise” and “sunset” is something she uses in many of her poems that represents birth and death and the word “ribbon” represents the youth and innocence. She also uses the word “steeples” which is a reference to God and religion. This can also be understood as union with God in nature, while “squirrels” symbolize the everyday activities. All in all, Emily Dickinson used many symbols from nature and wilderness and made many poems about the way she understood and saw nature. She believed that nature was connected to our everyday lives but also had the power to distant us from them. On top of that she believed that God allowed us to have access to nature and that is why we feel union with God every time we’re out in the wilderness. This in some ways ties back into the conclusion I came about todays societys view on nature and in some ways contrasts it. People in this time period have the urge to be outside in nature and enjoy it; just like Emily Dickinson explains it as the union with God, being in nature right now means finding peace between all of the normal day struggles for all age groups. However some people get caught up in the city, society and their works too much that they forget where they came from and what connects them back to God and peace, which allows them not to care about conserving and saving nature. My results from the interviews also state that people believe that the view on nature had important changes thoroughout the years. One person supported her opinion on the views of people changing by suggesting that people care more about nature these days than they did during the indurstrilization. The thoughts of these important people on nature usually get built up through their personal experiences with nature and their feelings when they're in wilderness. It is certain that we can still feel what they felt in nature even after many years they wrote down their ideas and feelings, even if we just go on a nature walk for half an hour.
Nature Walk
nature walk
“I become a transparent eye-ball. I’m nothing. I see all.” Said Emerson in his views on nature. This was one of the main things I felt during our nature walk on October 21st. I knew it was going to be harder and out of my normal comfort zone; the weather was far colder than what I was used to and nature had many unexpected things to offer us. However after struggling to climb up the mount, when we reached to the top, looking down at the endless beauty, I decided it was definitely worth it. Like I said before, nature had many unexpected things to offer us, it was unstable; you could see the best view of your life just after wishing you never came there. In my notes I took while looking down at the magical beauty nature offered me, I wrote that I was feeling peaceful and small. I was so little and unimportant in many ways but also extremely important in a way that I was a part of this endless beauty. I felt like I had some of the things that surprised me on this trip, that I never realized before, living inside me and I was important enough to see the real source of it. That made me realize I had a connection with nature; a connection that I cannot find in my regular life, a connection that is not trying to change me but instead showing me my real personality that I should hold on to. It also made me feel like I was home, a peaceful place that I do not have to worry about my regular, stressful works. I was “a transparent eye-ball” because the wilderness was reaching out and growing in many ways even though I tried to change it. The effects I had on it been only so little that it didn’t even noticed them. One of the other things I decided was that everyone should have the chance to experience this beauty. Wilderness and nature might be endless right now, they might not notice the small difference I make in them but man is becoming endless too and in some places he can affect it even more than he ever intended to. People should be more careful about what most of them are destroying, especially for the other generations. We have no idea how even more growing the mankind can get and if they destroy the real hope, the real wilderness, people will have nothing to live for anymore. We can see how people are influenced by this fear and their feelings about nature through the stories that have been writted throughout years, the ones that even have a way of coming back to our generation.
Two examples to these kind of children stories that include nature and fear of the unknown wilderness in them are Rip Van Winkle and Scooby Doo, "The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow". Rip Van Winkle was a charismatic man who attended different areas of work and focused mostly on the others rather than himself on everything he does. This was one of the reasons why he was very social and well known. However he did not fit in the society so much. He enjoyed nature and being out in the wilderness more than normal people living on his town. One of the reasons he enjoyed the woods and wilderness very much was because it was away from society and social life he known for years. Also wilderness gave him a sense of unknown world every time he stood alone in the woods. One day, he was introduced to the magical side of wilderness. While he was out exploring the mountains he ran into a knome and the knome gave him a strange liquor which made him sleep for 20 years. When he woke up and went back to his town, nothing was the way he remembered; he could not find his wife, no one remembered him and he had a beard that he was certain he did not have when he fell asleep. Moreover, Scooby Doo and The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow is also a magical and mystical story about “The Headless Horseman” that had been haunting the mansion the Scooby Doo crew is staying in since the Revolutionary War. It is said that The Headless Horseman lost his head during the Revolutionary War when he was hit by a cannon ball and now he is looking around for new heads ever since then. These two stories have some parts other than both being supernatural stories. For example both Rip Van Winkle and The Headless Horseman are not living during the time they normally should have lived. Also both of these stories use nature in a mystical and magical way that no one can explain why it happened. These stories both clearly state that mystical and unrealistic things might happen in nature because people can’t properly understand and view nature like they do for most of the things. On top of the movies and tv shows we watch, there is also nature in the books we read that became a part of our American Literature after the people like Cotton Mather and Jefferson first introduced their ideas.
Nature plays a big role in Huckleberry Finn, one of the novels that attained a perminent place in American Literature. In Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" the main characters Huck and Jim feel free with the nature that's surrounding them through their journey to South from the Mississippi River. Nature allows them to relax and feel in peace and they use the river as an escape from society and civilization. The Mississippi River in the story plays an important role and is an significant symbol for many things Huck and Jim are looking for and going through. The river and the raft is a place of freedom and adventure for them as well as being a place for them to feel comfortable. This is mainly because even though they have really different life styles and experiences both of these characters don't fit in the society and they don't want to be near civilization since they're afraid of getting caught. Through their journey to South they came to a realization that people's lives changed entirely and so quickly from where they started off. Especially for Jim, who is a runaway slave trying to reach the South, The Mississippi River represents freedom because he depends on the river in order to find his family. Huck agrees to help Jim escape and follows Jim down the river since they've known each other for a long time and he doesn't have the same views on black slaves like everyone else does and he wants to have some adventure. Just like Huck wanted they experience great adventures together through time, which Huck enjoys the most since they are much more dangerous for Jim and might even cause him to get caught. Every time they stop somewhere along the river and go into civilization by lying about their identities they always end up getting into trouble or finding themselves in a society they have never known of and at the end they always find peace and feel normal in nature moving along the Mississippi River again. One of the other reasons they feel a sense of freedom in the river is that it is the only place no one can control them, which is really important for a black slave who had been working for his master for a long time and a thirteen year old boy who had been living with a widow and was locked into a cabin by his father for days. However in the river they are only two man who enjoy each others company and therefore they can be relaxed and enjoy their living. The raft and the river became their home where they can do anything they ever desired to and be whoever they ever wanted to be. Their connection with the Mississippi River shows how much they hated civilization and how they never really fitted in the society. Another literature piece that gained an enormous importance in American Literature through its views on nature and society is The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel that mainly deals with urban wilderness, where the society creates a wilderness inside itself while trying to ignore the real wilderness and the unkown they were scared of. The novel takes place in three different places; one is the East Egg, second is the West Egg and the last place is the Valley of Ashes. East and West Egg are the wealthy places where everyone has extravagant houses and throws the best parties. The people that are in East Egg actually own the houses they live in while the people from West Egg rent their houses, which in some ways mean that West Egg is trying to be more like East Egg. On the contarary is the Valley of Ashes, where there's no wealth, big houses or future for anyone that lives in there. It's the place that lives in between these two Eggs that are full with wealth and future and it affects them in terrible ways. The idea of "wilderness" in this book lies in the Valley of Ashes and in peoples attitudes in the Eggs. The main character Nick felt like he was in a social wilderness because the social attitudes of the people did not fit with him. The midwest attitude was incompatible with the East and trying to fit in the system so people started living behind lies. The geography is as important as it is in nature in this book, the classes are divided by the places they live in. While Gatsby lives in West Egg and Tom and Daisy live in East Egg, Myrtle and her husband George live in the Valley of Ashes. George Wilson owns a run-down garage in the Ashes and Tom has to go through his place everytime he wants to go to New York and never forgets to get Myrtle, who he's having an affair with. Myrtle got ran over by Daisy with Tom's car and after she dies in the Valley of Ashes, George comes to the West Egg and kills Gatsby thinking he was the one who killed his wife. This means that the Valley of Ashes, the wilderness that is going around immorality, can affect the Eggs which are known as sanctuary places. Watching and having the clarity of vision is one of the biggest themes of the novel. Nick observes and experiences both different life styles he comes across in the Eggs and in the Valley of Ashes but is not able to fit in any of them. Fitzgerald uses many oxymorons to explain the character's personalities and places. The main reason is because everyone acts different and lives behind lies their entire lives in the Eggs and when their true identity shows in the Ashes, they try to ignore and run away from it. Daisy ran over Myrtle and killed her but chose to never tell anyone about it and ignore the fact that she killed someone. Even after she realizes Gatsby died because of her she choses to ignore the reality again. Oxymorons can be used to describe nature and wilderness as well as being used to describe the people and places in this book. Many things are more extreme and violent in wilderness but it has a good way to hide it. When you first see untouched nature, you get carried away by its beauty and peacefulness but it is inhospitable and intense. The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 around the kind of society that lived during the days which is not too far away from our society right now. On the other hand the film Koyaanisqatsi that consists footage of the cities and nature during 1982, the year it was filmed in some ways have the same markings with the society The Great Gatsby was talking about.
Urban wilderness The Great Gatsby pointed out seemes even more interesting than the real wilderness to me at first, because even though people still sometimes ignore the importance of nature and saving it, they form a wilderness inside their busy lives. Nature always has a way to connect and come back to our lives. We live in an urban wilderness. This means that nature still exists in the city and they are definitely not seperatable things, just like we see in Huckleberry Finn. Everytime they got stuck in civilization and tried to run away to nature for freedom, they carried civilization to their raft and evil could live in nature. Also Jim manages to find his freedom in civilization, which suggests that freedom and wilderness can be in socities. Wilderness also shapes our personality, depending on the different urban wildernesses people act in a certain way. Another example is from the book "Maggie: a Girl of the Streets" and the place it is set in, New York. We see many different faces of New York through the story and we see how everything in the city effects people. When in the beginning of the book Jimmie leads a street fight against the young from another part of New York city, we see that even between the city there are differences. That is why there is something called urban wilderness. Just like natural wilderness, cities and civilization also have change, peace and struggles. Sometimes people lose their ways in it and during some other times you might feel free and lonely. Maggie grows up around poverty and alcohol and that's why she gets attracted to wealth and culture really easily. Everything she has to face when she's rejected by everyone and becomes a prostitute shows how wild the city life can be. Furthermore the World's Fair in Chicago explains the urban wilderness in a different way. The fair looked like a modern city. What makes a city modern is that it's away and different from the rural parts, it has the enough energy to create wilderness in it and it's a different way of architecture and urban living. However a city can never escape nature and wilderness, it can just transform it. The fair had natural areas where people could relax in some places but when you passed the natural areas, the fake city was completely loud and crowded all the time. The views, the statues and the ideas were great, but it was getting hard for people to move around everyday and accidents like fire happened. So while wilderness in the nature is dangerous but at the same time good and peaceful, cities and civilization have the same characteristics too. The wilderness inside urban areas was best described in The Great Gatsby and in themovie Koyaanisqatsi.
Koyaanisqatsi, also known as "Life Out of Balance", is a footage of landscape and cities of the United States. The movie ties into our theme in its view on society and nature. It emphasiezes the sense of balance and order when it shows everything in a broad view. However when the movie starts highlighting the small details, especially in the city, you realize that theres distortion, wilderness in the city. The movie also used musical effects, which helped us illuminate our feelings. The music in the nature and landscapes created a sense of peace, but in the cities, especially when it started focusing into people and their faces, it started giving a negative feeling. The flow of time is an important theme in the movie. They played with the speed of things alot and while it created a feeling of beauty in nature, it cramped some perspective of the cities. However they used symetry and connections alot in city, which when looking from a broad view, gave a sense of order, repetition and balance. The move left a extraordinary emotional effect and focused on the destructive impact of our society on nature and environment. The movie has no characters, story line or dialogues; its a juxtaposition between nature and humans devastating environmental impact on the planet. Director gives out a clear message that humans are creating an urban wilderness in the cities and destroying nature with their ignorance. Even though that loked like the conclusion and the message in the movie, I realized that most people were trying to save nature and mainly try to do this by recycling. When talking about how she recycles at school and at home a boarding school student states that recycling is "economically friendly" and "helps the environment".
American Land
Ilkin TelliMan vs. Nature
Wilderness in todays society - What role does it play in our lives?
Some Nature Pictures: http://www.alpics.net/index.html
National Digital Library: http://digitalmedia.fws.gov/
How does todays society view nature?
Nature is everything that was not made or changed by man, it is a gift that should be shared equally and freely by everyone. However, if nature is all the landscape that was not influenced by humans then we do not have any nature at all. It should be the place where humans are usually far away, the place that lives by its own, wilderness. If we did not have this gift or if we do not protect it, we will not be able to survive. The fresh air the nature provides us and the energy our souls capture from it plays one of the biggest roles in our lives. In today’s society nature is generally seen as an endless resource mankindcan use and control whenever they want. The argument comes about at this point between the people that want to conserve nature and the people that want to preserve it. Most of the people state that they like nature and it is important that nature passes through generations. However not everyone does and agrees on conservative actions towards nature; even recycling, which is known as the easiest way to contribute to keeping nature as it is. The attitudes of people I interviewed about nature had small differences but mainly I realized that even though they believe that nature should be conserved, they dont do everything they can. The most popular conservative action is recycling. When asked to a 6 year-old, he states that they recycle to save and protect the nature. However when asked to a teenager or a grown-up, although they usually all know the importance of nature, the answer turns in to that its more economic. People believe that they are not important and one person being conservative is not gonna make a difference, therefore they wait for other people to do it for them.
Today’s society has both the idea that nature should be used as an energy resource and it should stay “natural” and not be touched at all. Both opinions exist and acceptable. People love and want to conserve the nature that they enjoy. The things that give them pleasure in nature might be different types of trees imported from nature or a hammock where they can relax. However these are not natural or a part of wilderness. The wilderness they overlook is where they are not brave enough to survive and where the natural products they buy come from. On top of that it’s also known that they need the resources nature can provide them like electricity and water. In the text written by John McPhee the protagonist Dominy who believes in the idea that nature should be accessible and be used for different resources, he wants to build more dams and by doing this, believes that he will help the survival of many people. On contrary Brower points out the importance of preserving nature and the value of “untouched” nature for people. Brower also knows that dams are useful for some people and for some areas but he believes that the amount of dams that Dominy wants will definitely destroy what they were given by God and cause many different problems like pollution. We already know that multitudinous natural areas were destroyed with the creation of the cities and now a city means the absence of nature for everyone living there. However people want to have green areas, different types of trees and some wilderness they can access. Even the small green areas where it was planted some trees may give an amount of people the idea of being close to a natural area but the question is are those areas actually natural. The information I gathered from my interviews suggest that people can find the non-natural nature areas in the cities satisfactory but they would choose the real nature over them easily. The reason they find natural areas planted by man enough is because they know that real nature and wilderness can't survive in the city and its hard for people to leave their lives in the busy city life to visit real natural areas. However if we define nature as the place where no man has ever touched, then we don’t have any nature at all. Man has its impact on everything including nature and wilderness. In the text “The Idea of a Garden” we realize that after natural happenings destroy the nature the citizens used to enjoy, majority of the people state that they have to replant that area so next generations can have the semblance of their great old forest. Some other citizens believe that they should leave it alone and let nature do whatever it wants to because these kinds of occurrences are responsible for shaping and changing the forest. However the response to their idea is that man has always had a relationship with nature and that is why we can now enjoy it in many different places; if we leave it to nature to do that it might last for thousands years; people won't be able to enjoy or even see the natural areas. People view nature as only a place where they can enjoy the great view, fresh air and they dont care if that place is truly nature or planted. This also means that as long as the society has a place where they can enjoy nature and reach the resources, they dont care sorely about building dams. Therefore people are usually scared of the real wilderness where its harder for them to survive. However some people want to try this and believe that everyone who tries enough to find their vital needs in nature can survive and manage to live in it alone. Just like McCandless and Dick Proenneke tried to do in the Alaska wilderness and became famous trough their decisions in life and hard work.
Alone in the Wilderness
McCandless and Dick both decided to go into the wilderness alone and try to survive because they couldn't find the real meaning of life in the society. While they were trying to survive under the tough conditions, they were also trying to find theirselves in the wild. Nature is an escape for us from the busy and crowded environment we are continuously in where we always feel like we have to do something or go somewhere. It had always been the isolation from the world people are so used to live in that they dont even realize it is in some ways slowly poisoning them. Therefore the little pieces of grass or few trees along your way back home should be considered as a part of "nature". Even though man has an impact on everything that exists in this world, nature should be a place where man does not continuously live in and in many ways is not able to change a lot, so people can feel the difference between the city life they created and the nature they couldn't affect that much. However when wilderness is different from the nature we can experience whenever we want. Wilderness is the place man has even less affect or impact on and it is the place that can challenge you the most while it can give you the greatest feelings many people people never experienced. Living in the wilderness is basically living in a different world than big buildings, the sense of hurry and never being completely relaxed at all, which is what people are all used to live in right now. The thing that influences some people to go explore wilderness, even live in it, is when they realize that they had been doing something they don't even like for years and spent their life pretending to like something because the society made them feel that way. When they realize this and if they are ready to take the risks, which is the part where most of the people give up, they are able to see the other beauties this world has offered us since the beginning. It is unbelievable how much the man has an impact on everything, even in this video we can see how much he has to cut the trees in order to survive. In some ways mankind definitely depend on nature. While it is our escape from the reality, it is also in our reality; even in our exam papers, the clothes we were or the places we call home. The view todays society has on nature had been shaped throughout the years since the genesis through the important people in American Literature.
How did we get here?
The first source that shapes our view on nature as asociety the Genesis. The first three chapters of the Book of Genesis contain important nature symbols that conveys to the spiritual truth about the nature in mankind's mind. The symbolic description of the Garden mentioned in the Genesis is that it is the heart if man; the symbolic soil of the earth where God plants his seeds to grow spiritual food and the seed in the Genesis is the symbolic representation of children, words and several other types of things. Garden is seen as something man or God has to rule on and change even from the beginning and it is also mentioned that mankind depends on nature and the seeds that would not mean anything without nature. After reading the Genesis you instantly get the idea that Nature is something produced to work for man. However sometimes the evilness or the powers of nature can defeat man or beguile them to do stupid things, just like the trees that can produce good or evil fruit and the snake that lures the woman to eat the forbidden fruit. Nature and man were both created by God and since the beginning they both had an impact on each other but man always had the strength to control nature as he wants, most of the times forgetting that he would not mean anything without it. All the other creation stories have nature as a factor in them. One other example is the Pima/Iroquoian creation stories, which were created among the Indian tribes of North America.
Mankinds control over nature has also been seen through Native Americans, they relied on storytelling to tell important life lessons and establish beliefs. They provide reference to their beliefs about right and wrong. They establish a big part of their culture by providing connections between man and nature. “The Iroquois Creation Story,” compares and shows the struggle between good and evil. It first shows the existence of both sides and then their differences. Both “The Iroquois Creation Story” and Pima’s “The Story of the Creation” have a bigger theme which is mankind’s connection with nature. In the creation stories it is usually established that this relationship is a cycle, by pointing out that man wouldn’t be able to do anything if there was no nature and nature would be pointless without man. Human’s role in nature and the harmony they live together in was really important for the Native Americans as we can see from the creation stories. It is also implied in the story that they had a belief of using nature efficiently for resources; nature is seemed as a source that has to be respected. However it was still obvious that man had to use nature to survive. Even though they have many other cultural aspects in these creation stories, most commonly they are all pointing at the direction of mankind’s role in conserving nature.
These are the stories which led us and transitioned us towards the ideas in American Literature about nature and our attitude we have towards nature right now.
Nature in American Literature
The first view in American Literature was Cotton Mather who believed that witches were not possessed by spirits, but that they were agents of the devil and he saw Salem as a battleground between good and evil. He made connections to nature throughout his writing “From the Wonder of the Invisible World”. The phrase “invisible world” can be comprehended as something we cannot see and understand clearly, which is referring to nature and wilderness in some ways. The New World was settled on the “devil’s territories, something out of civilization, unknown, wilderness; it was what God had planted many years ago. While the New World was settling, the “poor plantation” began; not only agriculture but also the plantation of new people, new lives and more place for them to live in. He believes that all these people that filled the land where also ruining it. Cotton Mather settled a clear history about the people who saw their selves transforming the witches into civilization. In this case, this is also referring to transforming the wilderness into civilization. Turning something they did not know enough, in to the idea of a harmonious community. In that way, Cotton Mather’s ideas also had a religious theme in them and could be related to Genesis and the creation stories. Witchcraft was something when they couldnt find answers in the New World.After him, Crevecoeur starts his Letters from an American Farmer by describing what an American for him is.
Crevecoeur argues if Europeans coming to America were considered as Americans and how they all constructed the new American figure. Therefore he said that American was a new man; who acted upon new principles, entertained new ideas and formed new opinions and who also had religious demands and freedoms. He also made the argument that “Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow.”(Crevecoeur 313). This suggests that we would not be anything without the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess and the nature of our employment. This makes us just like plants, meaning nothing without the outside and their impact on us. This is why Crevecoeur believes that nature and men should live in commodity that they need each other in order to survive.Ideas about wilderness and that it has to be changed in order for mankind to live in it happily continued evolving with Jefferson and his notes on Virginia.
Nature, in common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of Emerson's will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a statue, a picture. But his operations taken altogether are so insignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing, that in an impression so Grand as that of the world on the human mind, they do not vary the result. Emerson added his point of views on nature to the American Literature through art. He compared the situation that for many people nature is the parts of the world that is unchanged by man, but man has an impact on everything he’s able to reach, to art. Art is applied to something real and makes little differences on it and when you look form the outside again you can’t tell the difference; if it’s a painting of a tree, you say that it’s a tree the first time you see it. Man definitely has an impact on nature but this impact stands so little next to nature itself. Emerson, in his writings on nature, uses a religious theme. He states that nature never wears a mean appearance that nature is always accessible to man and it always leaves an impression if their mind is open to influence at that time. Emerson makes this argument using his example about stars and how no men would believe or adore them if they only came out one night in thousand years. He says that no one would have the chance to remember God and the beauties he gave us. However they come out every night, lighten ups the universe, but they are not accessible like nature. Just like stated in Genesis, nature and wilderness were something God made accessible to man, so that they could live together and so that they could both have an impact on each other. That is why, Emerson states, people return to reason and faith while in the woods. In nature, man turns himself back to God and remembers that he is a part or a particle of nature and God. However not every man can see and feel this way, not every man can open their influences in nature. Emerson puts out two different kinds of people that can easily do this; child and poet. This is because they see everything bigger and in a wonder, which leads them to get easily influenced. For Emerson there is a commodity between man and nature. We owe many of the things we own; many of our advantages to nature, to what nature provided us with and offered us. “Nature, in its ministry to man, is not only the material, but is also the process and the result.” (Emerson 495). All of its parts work incessantly to profit and offer man. This also again relates to religious theme and Genesis in a way that nature was made to serve man. Ben Franklin improved Emerson's ideas about nature using the Native Americans.
The idea that the poet and the child are the only people that can really feel and connect with nature is developed by Ben Franklin and his statement that Native American had been that way too before the Europeans came and forcefully influenced their lifestyles on them.
On top of the famous names in American Literature that wrote about nature; Emily Dickinson, also a famous name in our language, explained her feelings and views on nature through her poems. (Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson)
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A Day
I'll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!"
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Emily Dickison includes to the nature in American Literature through her poems. In this poem, she talks about the beauty of sunrise and sunset and little pleasures she gets from them. The little words like “ribbon” or “sunset” has different meanings in her nature poem. For example “sunrise” and “sunset” is something she uses in many of her poems that represents birth and death and the word “ribbon” represents the youth and innocence. She also uses the word “steeples” which is a reference to God and religion. This can also be understood as union with God in nature, while “squirrels” symbolize the everyday activities. All in all, Emily Dickinson used many symbols from nature and wilderness and made many poems about the way she understood and saw nature. She believed that nature was connected to our everyday lives but also had the power to distant us from them. On top of that she believed that God allowed us to have access to nature and that is why we feel union with God every time we’re out in the wilderness. This in some ways ties back into the conclusion I came about todays societys view on nature and in some ways contrasts it. People in this time period have the urge to be outside in nature and enjoy it; just like Emily Dickinson explains it as the union with God, being in nature right now means finding peace between all of the normal day struggles for all age groups. However some people get caught up in the city, society and their works too much that they forget where they came from and what connects them back to God and peace, which allows them not to care about conserving and saving nature. My results from the interviews also state that people believe that the view on nature had important changes thoroughout the years. One person supported her opinion on the views of people changing by suggesting that people care more about nature these days than they did during the indurstrilization.
The thoughts of these important people on nature usually get built up through their personal experiences with nature and their feelings when they're in wilderness. It is certain that we can still feel what they felt in nature even after many years they wrote down their ideas and feelings, even if we just go on a nature walk for half an hour.
Nature Walk
“I become a transparent eye-ball. I’m nothing. I see all.” Said Emerson in his views on nature. This was one of the main things I felt during our nature walk on October 21st. I knew it was going to be harder and out of my normal comfort zone; the weather was far colder than what I was used to and nature had many unexpected things to offer us. However after struggling to climb up the mount, when we reached to the top, looking down at the endless beauty, I decided it was definitely worth it. Like I said before, nature had many unexpected things to offer us, it was unstable; you could see the best view of your life just after wishing you never came there. In my notes I took while looking down at the magical beauty nature offered me, I wrote that I was feeling peaceful and small. I was so little and unimportant in many ways but also extremely important in a way that I was a part of this endless beauty. I felt like I had some of the things that surprised me on this trip, that I never realized before, living inside me and I was important enough to see the real source of it. That made me realize I had a connection with nature; a connection that I cannot find in my regular life, a connection that is not trying to change me but instead showing me my real personality that I should hold on to. It also made me feel like I was home, a peaceful place that I do not have to worry about my regular, stressful works. I was “a transparent eye-ball” because the wilderness was reaching out and growing in many ways even though I tried to change it. The effects I had on it been only so little that it didn’t even noticed them. One of the other things I decided was that everyone should have the chance to experience this beauty. Wilderness and nature might be endless right now, they might not notice the small difference I make in them but man is becoming endless too and in some places he can affect it even more than he ever intended to. People should be more careful about what most of them are destroying, especially for the other generations. We have no idea how even more growing the mankind can get and if they destroy the real hope, the real wilderness, people will have nothing to live for anymore. We can see how people are influenced by this fear and their feelings about nature through the stories that have been writted throughout years, the ones that even have a way of coming back to our generation.
Two examples to these kind of children stories that include nature and fear of the unknown wilderness in them are Rip Van Winkle and Scooby Doo, "The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow". Rip Van Winkle was a charismatic man who attended different areas of work and focused mostly on the others rather than himself on everything he does. This was one of the reasons why he was very social and well known. However he did not fit in the society so much. He enjoyed nature and being out in the wilderness more than normal people living on his town. One of the reasons he enjoyed the woods and wilderness very much was because it was away from society and social life he known for years. Also wilderness gave him a sense of unknown world every time he stood alone in the woods. One day, he was introduced to the magical side of wilderness. While he was out exploring the mountains he ran into a knome and the knome gave him a strange liquor which made him sleep for 20 years. When he woke up and went back to his town, nothing was the way he remembered; he could not find his wife, no one remembered him and he had a beard that he was certain he did not have when he fell asleep. Moreover, Scooby Doo and The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow is also a magical and mystical story about “The Headless Horseman” that had been haunting the mansion the Scooby Doo crew is staying in since the Revolutionary War. It is said that The Headless Horseman lost his head during the Revolutionary War when he was hit by a cannon ball and now he is looking around for new heads ever since then. These two stories have some parts other than both being supernatural stories. For example both Rip Van Winkle and The Headless Horseman are not living during the time they normally should have lived. Also both of these stories use nature in a mystical and magical way that no one can explain why it happened. These stories both clearly state that mystical and unrealistic things might happen in nature because people can’t properly understand and view nature like they do for most of the things. On top of the movies and tv shows we watch, there is also nature in the books we read that became a part of our American Literature after the people like Cotton Mather and Jefferson first introduced their ideas.
Nature plays a big role in Huckleberry Finn, one of the novels that attained a perminent place in American Literature. In Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" the main characters Huck and Jim feel free with the nature that's surrounding them through their journey to South from the Mississippi River. Nature allows them to relax and feel in peace and they use the river as an escape from society and civilization. The Mississippi River in the story plays an important role and is an significant symbol for many things Huck and Jim are looking for and going through. The river and the raft is a place of freedom and adventure for them as well as being a place for them to feel comfortable. This is mainly because even though they have really different life styles and experiences both of these characters don't fit in the society and they don't want to be near civilization since they're afraid of getting caught. Through their journey to South they came to a realization that people's lives changed entirely and so quickly from where they started off. Especially for Jim, who is a runaway slave trying to reach the South, The Mississippi River represents freedom because he depends on the river in order to find his family. Huck agrees to help Jim escape and follows Jim down the river since they've known each other for a long time and he doesn't have the same views on black slaves like everyone else does and he wants to have some adventure. Just like Huck wanted they experience great adventures together through time, which Huck enjoys the most since they are much more dangerous for Jim and might even cause him to get caught. Every time they stop somewhere along the river and go into civilization by lying about their identities they always end up getting into trouble or finding themselves in a society they have never known of and at the end they always find peace and feel normal in nature moving along the Mississippi River again. One of the other reasons they feel a sense of freedom in the river is that it is the only place no one can control them, which is really important for a black slave who had been working for his master for a long time and a thirteen year old boy who had been living with a widow and was locked into a cabin by his father for days. However in the river they are only two man who enjoy each others company and therefore they can be relaxed and enjoy their living. The raft and the river became their home where they can do anything they ever desired to and be whoever they ever wanted to be. Their connection with the Mississippi River shows how much they hated civilization and how they never really fitted in the society. Another literature piece that gained an enormous importance in American Literature through its views on nature and society is The Great Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby is a novel that mainly deals with urban wilderness, where the society creates a wilderness inside itself while trying to ignore the real wilderness and the unkown they were scared of. The novel takes place in three different places; one is the East Egg, second is the West Egg and the last place is the Valley of Ashes. East and West Egg are the wealthy places where everyone has extravagant houses and throws the best parties. The people that are in East Egg actually own the houses they live in while the people from West Egg rent their houses, which in some ways mean that West Egg is trying to be more like East Egg. On the contarary is the Valley of Ashes, where there's no wealth, big houses or future for anyone that lives in there. It's the place that lives in between these two Eggs that are full with wealth and future and it affects them in terrible ways. The idea of "wilderness" in this book lies in the Valley of Ashes and in peoples attitudes in the Eggs. The main character Nick felt like he was in a social wilderness because the social attitudes of the people did not fit with him. The midwest attitude was incompatible with the East and trying to fit in the system so people started living behind lies. The geography is as important as it is in nature in this book, the classes are divided by the places they live in. While Gatsby lives in West Egg and Tom and Daisy live in East Egg, Myrtle and her husband George live in the Valley of Ashes. George Wilson owns a run-down garage in the Ashes and Tom has to go through his place everytime he wants to go to New York and never forgets to get Myrtle, who he's having an affair with. Myrtle got ran over by Daisy with Tom's car and after she dies in the Valley of Ashes, George comes to the West Egg and kills Gatsby thinking he was the one who killed his wife. This means that the Valley of Ashes, the wilderness that is going around immorality, can affect the Eggs which are known as sanctuary places. Watching and having the clarity of vision is one of the biggest themes of the novel. Nick observes and experiences both different life styles he comes across in the Eggs and in the Valley of Ashes but is not able to fit in any of them. Fitzgerald uses many oxymorons to explain the character's personalities and places. The main reason is because everyone acts different and lives behind lies their entire lives in the Eggs and when their true identity shows in the Ashes, they try to ignore and run away from it. Daisy ran over Myrtle and killed her but chose to never tell anyone about it and ignore the fact that she killed someone. Even after she realizes Gatsby died because of her she choses to ignore the reality again. Oxymorons can be used to describe nature and wilderness as well as being used to describe the people and places in this book. Many things are more extreme and violent in wilderness but it has a good way to hide it. When you first see untouched nature, you get carried away by its beauty and peacefulness but it is inhospitable and intense. The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 around the kind of society that lived during the days which is not too far away from our society right now. On the other hand the film Koyaanisqatsi that consists footage of the cities and nature during 1982, the year it was filmed in some ways have the same markings with the society The Great Gatsby was talking about.
Urban wilderness The Great Gatsby pointed out seemes even more interesting than the real wilderness to me at first, because even though people still sometimes ignore the importance of nature and saving it, they form a wilderness inside their busy lives. Nature always has a way to connect and come back to our lives. We live in an urban wilderness. This means that nature still exists in the city and they are definitely not seperatable things, just like we see in Huckleberry Finn. Everytime they got stuck in civilization and tried to run away to nature for freedom, they carried civilization to their raft and evil could live in nature. Also Jim manages to find his freedom in civilization, which suggests that freedom and wilderness can be in socities. Wilderness also shapes our personality, depending on the different urban wildernesses people act in a certain way. Another example is from the book "Maggie: a Girl of the Streets" and the place it is set in, New York. We see many different faces of New York through the story and we see how everything in the city effects people. When in the beginning of the book Jimmie leads a street fight against the young from another part of New York city, we see that even between the city there are differences. That is why there is something called urban wilderness. Just like natural wilderness, cities and civilization also have change, peace and struggles. Sometimes people lose their ways in it and during some other times you might feel free and lonely. Maggie grows up around poverty and alcohol and that's why she gets attracted to wealth and culture really easily. Everything she has to face when she's rejected by everyone and becomes a prostitute shows how wild the city life can be. Furthermore the World's Fair in Chicago explains the urban wilderness in a different way. The fair looked like a modern city. What makes a city modern is that it's away and different from the rural parts, it has the enough energy to create wilderness in it and it's a different way of architecture and urban living. However a city can never escape nature and wilderness, it can just transform it. The fair had natural areas where people could relax in some places but when you passed the natural areas, the fake city was completely loud and crowded all the time. The views, the statues and the ideas were great, but it was getting hard for people to move around everyday and accidents like fire happened. So while wilderness in the nature is dangerous but at the same time good and peaceful, cities and civilization have the same characteristics too. The wilderness inside urban areas was best described in The Great Gatsby and in themovie Koyaanisqatsi.
Koyaanisqatsi, also known as "Life Out of Balance", is a footage of landscape and cities of the United States. The movie ties into our theme in its view on society and nature. It emphasiezes the sense of balance and order when it shows everything in a broad view. However when the movie starts highlighting the small details, especially in the city, you realize that theres distortion, wilderness in the city. The movie also used musical effects, which helped us illuminate our feelings. The music in the nature and landscapes created a sense of peace, but in the cities, especially when it started focusing into people and their faces, it started giving a negative feeling. The flow of time is an important theme in the movie. They played with the speed of things alot and while it created a feeling of beauty in nature, it cramped some perspective of the cities. However they used symetry and connections alot in city, which when looking from a broad view, gave a sense of order, repetition and balance. The move left a extraordinary emotional effect and focused on the destructive impact of our society on nature and environment. The movie has no characters, story line or dialogues; its a juxtaposition between nature and humans devastating environmental impact on the planet. Director gives out a clear message that humans are creating an urban wilderness in the cities and destroying nature with their ignorance. Even though that loked like the conclusion and the message in the movie, I realized that most people were trying to save nature and mainly try to do this by recycling. When talking about how she recycles at school and at home a boarding school student states that recycling is "economically friendly" and "helps the environment".